


all the best things

by orphan_account



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Gen, Sisters, minor gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 19:18:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Come in threes. The Wei sisters know this to be a fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the best things

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Three Golden Bulls Worth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/885139) by [miikkaa_xx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miikkaa_xx/pseuds/miikkaa_xx). 



> Also inspired by [apocalypsecanceled](http://apocalypsecanceled.tumblr.com/post/64096974420/edited-from-here-characters-wei-triplets) on tumblr, and [vera-ist-44](http://vera-ist-44.tumblr.com/post/60587445888), also on tumblr.

Jin came home one day, purple bruise blooming on her cheek, and two red bills (red as the sunset on the first day of the end of the world) clutched tightly in her fist. 

"I found work for us. She said to buy something nice to wear. For the three of us." 

Cheung was sitting on the bed, a single mattress on the floor, braiding Hu's hair when she looked up. Jin wore a half-scared, half-triumphant expression and held up a brown bag that opened to reveal a silky red dress. 

"It's very pretty," Hu said. 

In the next instant Cheung was standing, reaching for both her sisters and holding them close to her sides as she dragged them towards the small, poorly lit bathroom of their tiny, shitty apartment. 

She attacked their hair, cutting off long lengths of locks that Mama used to be slide her fingers through in the early morning before she went to work and whisper: willow-maidens, as unyielding as the cycle of the seasons. Their hair fell to the dirty tiles under their feet and Jin cried but Cheung didn't stop, kept cutting and cutting until there was hardly any hair left on their heads. The last strands cut were caught in the air like leaves in a breeze, slowly drifting down to be lost in the mass of inky black hair below. 

Jin was still crying, when Cheung set to work on her own hair, but Hu's hand stopped her and took up the scissors instead. 

"Let me, sister. Let me."

Tomorrow Cheung will begin to bind her breasts. She will tie the bindings around Jin's torso snuggly and then Hu's. It will be dark outside when they wake so their image will be unclear and blurry in the reflection of the only window, and Cheung will think of taking those two red snappers and going to Hong Kong. It's far enough. And on the way they will raid churches and old bins for hand-me downs. Boys' hand-me downs. 

 

They let Hu talk, because when she pitches her voice low, the harsh Cantonese syllables slide off her tongue and people listen when she talks. She strikes deals after matches, haggling for a share of that nights profits, and then demanding another roll of bindings. It's the same every night.

'How much does it take to bind your fists?'

'However much it takes to make our punches strong and sure, Mr. Chau.'

When they are stepping into the ring, what a joke (a dirt pit with shitty raised seats like it's some high school gym), they always look smaller than their competitors. They're tall enough, but too thin around the middle, obviously underfed, but that just means the hungry gleam in their eyes as they stare down their next meal ticket becomes apparent to the crowd and bets on those Wei triplets flood in once the crowd smells just how _desperate_ they are. They have nothing except each other. All or nothing in the ring. And there's three of them, sisters at arms, brothers in battle. 

There is nothing they won't do for each other. 

Cheung kills a man for Jin. She kills him dead and when she's standing over his corpse barely breathing hard and Jin has been rushed to the hospital because of her broken wrist and the crowd is _roaring_. They can smell the sweat, the blood, and they are cheering for Cheung who is merciless in the face of adversity and Mr. Chau doesn't pay them that night because that's not what they are paid to do in the ring, but they don't care because Hu's hands are filled with bills the moment they get caught up in the crowd as it trickles out of the arena. 

'You Wei brothers are something. So thin, like saplings, but so strong! So angry. I knew it was the right thing to do to bet on you. Tips, for the good show.'

Hu laughs and thanks the men. Cheung hangs back, spits, and turns to ignore the red splattered across the pavement (three red snappers for three pretty girls). 

 

Of course there are girls in the program. Anyone who comes ready-made with a possible co-pilot is welcome. Siblings are easy. Family is easy.

But when the end of their stint at the Academy looms near, it is just the triplets and Xinxin and Meili that are left. 

"Where did they all go?" Hu jokes as the triplets squish into the only patch of shade as far as the eye can see. The backboard of the hoop offers an island, just a little rectangle, of relief from the unforgiving noon time sun but it is enough for the three of them. 

"Maybe a kaiju ate them all," Jin says. She's scratching at her head and the way her hair fluffs up reminds Cheung of a new born chick, all downy feathers and confused chirps.

"That would be a shame." 

"Sister, don't be such a wet blanket." 

And Hu thinks, sometimes the only way to deal with loss and sorrow is to make idle jokes about it. It's silly to deny that you are thinking about it all the time. So why not have some fun at the expense of yourself.

It's too hot to play a good game of basketball, so Jin rests the ball on her stomach and lies half on her sisters and half on the sizzling asphalt of the court. She closes her eyes and thinks of their autumn graduation that is just a month away. How will they pick who drifts with who? Will they be put on a rotation or separated forever or...

"We," Cheung says, "will always be together." Like she can hear Jin's doubts. "Who's the wet blanket now, huh?" And she reaches out to run her fingers through Jin's hair.


End file.
